


This String is Moving Your Bones

by Xyriath



Series: Who Are You, Really? [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: Mirror Universe
Genre: Academy Era, M/M, Medical Torture, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:05:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath/pseuds/Xyriath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard has heard of soulbonds before.  He just never thought it would happen to him--and now that it has, he isn't sure if he can hide it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This String is Moving Your Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt: Mirrorverse soulbond McKirk. McCoy knows Kirk is his other soulhalf but Kirk doesn't know yet.
> 
> ~~May be sequeled, someday.~~ Sequel [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1518104).

The first time Leonard McCoy saw Jim Kirk, he stopped dead in the middle of the Academy courtyard.

When he realized, he tried to pull his gaze away. His eye must be playing tricks on him—the empty socket where Jocelyn had dug out the other was still healing, and he hadn't yet gotten used to seeing with only one.

But even after closing and reopening it, the kid still caught his attention. No name, just a head of blonde hair and a wiry build covered in cadet reds. It was too far to see him well, but Leonard was fairly certain that he'd recognize that walk if he saw it again.

The young man paused midstep, twisting his head to look in Leonard's direction.

Leonard turned away quickly. He doubted the kid was actually looking at him, but with his eyepatch, he wasn't exactly the easiest face to forget.

And it was generally not a good idea to get noticed around here.

—

Leonard didn't learn his name until two months later. This was after his eye had healed, after Starfleet had implanted the cybernetic eye they had promised him, a vast improvement over his old one. It was after he had made a name for himself at the Academy's clinic with his… creativity, a prodigious and elegant blend of classic medical techniques with modern, cutting-edge science. Efficient enough to prevent severe and permanently debilitating losses of productivity, excruciatingly painful enough to discourage repeat incidents or flippant clinic use, and precisely sadistic enough to sate his own personal needs.

After all, it took a special kind of person to become a doctor.

Unfortunately, however, only so much time could be spent on extreme corrections, and they often had to fix as much as they got to break.

"D'you hear that?" Leonard murmured, almost crooning, to the wide-eyed cadet strapped to the operation table, a metal band over her mouth to keep her from screaming. "That's the sound of your radius and ulna snapping in two." He smirked, hand moving again, slowly and repeatedly, and sickening snapping noises sounded in the air. "Those were your phalanges. Fascinatin', the differences in sound, hmm? Now would y'like to hear what your metacarpals sound like?"

The cadet tried to shake her head, but the thick metal band kept her head firmly in place. Leonard just laughed, reaching in again.

"Doctor McCoy?"

The sharp tone behind him caused him to turn, a scowl on his face. Chetana stood in the room holding a chart—she had probably been standing there for the past few minutes.

"What?" he snapped, knowing already what the answer was going to be.

"You have a patient." She held out the file, and Leonard snatched it away. He glanced down at it, but then looked up and at her companion—straight into the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

He nearly sucked in his breath as recognition struck him, and he could see the eyes narrow. He set his jaw and broke eye contact, feigning disinterest and turning back to the other cadet.

"Looks like y'got a reprieve," he murmured to her. "Doctor Whinfield's gonna be taking care of you, I think." Glancing over at Chetana and nodding, he left the room, indicating that the other cadet should follow.

He glanced quickly through the chart as they entered another room. Jim Kirk, first year cadet, a couple allergies to take note of, and ordered to come here after a physical altercation for attention. He set it aside and looked up.

"Jim Kirk?" he asked sharply—almost too sharply.

"That's me," the kid replied, insolence dripping from his tone. "And you?"

"Doctor McCoy." He kept the answer curt as he eyed the cadet, taking in the rips in his uniform and the deep slash down the left side of his face dripping blood onto the shirt. "Well ain't you a mess."

Kirk bared his teeth in a grin. There was blood on them. "Yeah, I got that. No first name?"

Leonard was torn between slapping the cockiness out of him and admiring the kid's guts, given where he was. He had to actively stop himself from grinning back—he couldn't figure out why he found it so goddamn _charming._

"Not a chance," he scoffed. "Now take off your shirt."

Something flashed in Kirk's impossible eyes, anger and defensiveness, but he didn't say anything further, simply stood and pulled it off.

Normally Bones would have felt no guilt in blatantly ogling, no matter how uncomfortable it might make a patient—causing discomfort was part of his job, after all. But this came from a place that was almost desperation, a longing that he couldn't explain and spoke of a weakness he couldn't show. He didn't want to hurt Kirk, not really. In fact, he wanted the kid to like him.

Leonard looked away and walked over to a drawer.

Kirk had looked surprised when he had pulled out the regen, but that faded and quickly turned into a cocky grin when he found that Leonard had no nefarious purpose behind it and actually intended on regenning the smaller cuts. He launched into a gleeful tale of the fight he had gotten into—instigated, really—and the state in which he had left the other cadet. Leonard found himself impressed, despite himself, though it combined with a twist of bitterness. He tried to tell himself it was envy.

Not even Kirk, however, was lucky enough to get regens on the larger cuts. He at least received an anesthetic—delivered in a syringe, as per Leonard's personal preferences, instead of a hypospray—but no way was he getting away without stitches.

"So." Kirk was still grinning, though it was lopsided now, left eye fixed on Bones as he stitched up the last injury, the gash in his cheek. "You're really not going to tell me your name?"

Leonard snorted, meeting that eye determinedly, as if to prove something to himself. "You gotta earn that, kid."

"Earn it? Guess I'll work on that, Bones."

Leonard's eyebrows leapt for his hairline. "Bones?"

Jim's lopsided smile turned cruel. "Bones. You seem to know them pretty well, don't you?"

Leonard just rolled his eyes as he snipped the final suture short, dropping it in the garbage. "Get outta here, kid. 'Fore I decide you need more treatment."

Jim just smirked (when had he become Jim?), grabbing his shirt and tugging it back on. "Whatever you say, Bones."

When he turned away from the door, Leonard no longer had to hide his smile.

—

The next moment he had spare time—not an easy thing to come by as a medical practitioner at Starfleet Academy—he caught himself skimming through old notes from med school, his psychology classes in particular. His fingers stilled over an entry from October of his second year, and he pulled it up.

_Soulbond._

He had heard the term before, but couldn't remember the particulars. He scowled, cybernetic eye capturing and highlighting relevant portions of the text.

_A fairly rare form of mental bonding, linking two people together as a lifelong pair. Potentially platonic, but often romantic, and unbreakable with modern science. They could be difficult to identify, though an immediate reaction would be felt by both partners upon their first meeting._

He swallowed and continued reading.

_Even when identified by one part, it was not uncommon for it to go ignored, as it left a person susceptible to manipulation, psychic or otherwise. This could be caused through the potentially empathetic nature of the bond that was entirely possible with enough attention paid to it. While soulbonds had produced pairs of individuals that were so flawlessly in tandem with each other that they were nearly unstoppable, it was not uncommon for a stronger personality, upon realizing what had happened, to overpower the other and force them into a lifetime of mental abuse and slavery._

Leonard thought of Jim Kirk's icy blue eyes, his cold smirk, and of his own uncanny attraction and desire to make the man like him.

Well, _shit_.

—

Of course, now that he _knew_ , it was impossible for his eyes not to stray whenever he noticed the kid. His cybernetic had developed an annoying habit of identifying Jim's face whenever it recognized it in a crowd, whether Leonard had noticed him or not, and it was proving to be frustrating. As Leonard's eye worked on unconscious thoughts rather than conscious ones, it was something he couldn't figure out how to fix, not without going to someone who wouldn't hesitate to sell him out for the right price.

He was at least confident that while Jim felt the draw as well (and he had become Jim, as surely as Leonard had become Bones), he would not realize the cause of it. It was a term that was mostly theoretical and isolated among the field of psychology, and he was learning enough about Jim to know that his interests lay firmly elsewhere.

"Captain, Bones. And you as my CMO. Imagine it." Jim's eyes had taken on that manic glint that Leonard always found himself wanting to drown in. As much as he hated Jim Kirk for being such a dangerous weakness, there was a large amount of admiration for him as well, for his vision and daring.

"Gettin' ahead of ourselves, ain't we?" he drawled, but he smirked as he took another drink of his bourbon. Setting the glass back down on the table, he looked up and caught Jim watching him, eyes narrowed slightly, as if he were a puzzle he couldn't quite solve. Leonard didn't ask; he knew why, and he didn't want Jim thinking too hard about it.

He just wished he could make himself stay away. Any doubts he had had about being the "weaker" personality had evaporated when, after Jim had decided to insinuate himself into Leonard's life, he had been unable to say no.

"I've seen you work." As if in opposition to Leonard's drawl, Jim's tone was sharp, precise, eager. "You're the best. I'm the best. They'd have to be idiots not to assign us before two years are up." He was grinning again, his white, even teeth matching the glint of his eyes.

Leonard watched him under the guise of insobriety, eyes resting on the scar on his face. It really did make Jim dashing. He never got as drunk as he appeared; never let on that he kept at least one of his eyes on Jim every second they were together; never let on that he was ready, if needed, to slip the scalpel he now always carried with him from his pocket and slit Jim Kirk's throat.

He wanted, he really did, to have the partnership, the camaraderie, that he knew could come from a bond like this, but he couldn't risk it. Jim could have been sitting across him, thinking the exact same thing, but he couldn't risk it.

"Well, let's just hope they ain't idiots, then."

—

Jim continued to show up in the clinic, time and time again, refusing to wince as Leonard stitched him closed.

Leonard didn't use anesthetic.


End file.
